Russian doping: Wada vice-president wants 'rapid' action after deadline missed

Russian doping: Wada vice-president wants 'rapid' action after deadline missed

By: Francis Joseph

The World Anti-Doping Agency should act "rapidly" after Russia's anti-doping agency missed a deadline to hand over data from its Moscow laboratory, says vice-president Linda Helleland.
Russia was set a 31 December deadline to comply, but Wada's inspection team were denied full access to samples.
The country could now be at risk of another ban from international events.

Helleland told BBC Sport she was "extremely disappointed but not surprised" Russia did not comply.

The Norwegian politician added that a Wada panel should convene "immediately" to decide whether Russia should be suspended again.

Wada says it will refer the issue to its compliance review committee (CRC), an independent body that will next meet on 14 January in Canada, after which it will make a recommendation to Wada's executive committee (ExCo).

Wada's athlete committee said it was "extremely disappointed" the deadline was missed and that it expected Russia to be declared non-compliant following the process recommended by the CRC.

"Only this action will be suitable and appropriate in the view of the athletes - anything less will be considered a failure by Wada to act on behalf of clean athletes," it said.

"I am extremely disappointed that Russia did not deliver within the more than three-month time frame they had at their disposal to extract the data," she said.

"Having said that, I am not surprised, this process has unfortunately been going on for years she added.

Report from BBC was used